Translated by Claire Williams
POETRY'S MISSION DURING THE PANDEMIC
A Glossary
Embracism: Theory defending the use of embraces to cure absences.
(Loving is far away when we are distancing from ourselves.)
Physical Distancing: In cases of love, distance is not measured in metres, but by absences.
State of Calamity: Is declared in cases of internal emergencies, for example prolonged separation which puts the heart’s integrity at risk.
At Risk Group: Humanity. Because we are all creators of infinity in this perpetually finite adventure which is life.
Roaralgia: Urge to let out in a roar the pain that has been silenced in the voice.
Hygienisation: Disinfecting thoughts. (Because there are emotions that can infect us on the inside.)
Law of Poetriality: Determines the compulsory use of poetry to avoid the transmission of fear.
Curfew: Circulation in public areas is only permitted for the acquisition of the most essential items such as, for example, hope.
(Hope is the last thing to get locked down.)
Essential Service: Dreams delivered to your door. (Vital for those who cannot leave their homes.)
Travel: Forbidden, except for landscoping (the act of contemplating the landscape so that the journey can be made inside us).
Heduardo has an MA in Culture and Communication and graduated in Philosophy from the Literature Faculty at the University of Lisbon. He's the author of the webpage Paradoxos (since 2013) and of the blog Fotomorfoses (since 2012). He has contributed to a number of newspapers and magazines as well as organised poetry readings.
Claire is an Associate Professor in Brazilian Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford. As an academic she has published widely on twentieth and twenty-first century women’s writing, minority writing and life writing from the Portuguese-speaking world, and has translated stories by Dulce Maria Cardoso, Hélia Correia and Ana Paula Maia.
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